


Every Place has a Ghost Story

by Silex



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aquariums, Gen, Ghosts, Octopi & Squid, Slice of Life, Trick or Treat: Treat, Workplace Stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-10 21:11:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16462397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: No matter how mundane or unusual a job is, there are bound to be ghost stories about events that happened there in the past.





	Every Place has a Ghost Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afterism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterism/gifts).



“Who put saltwater in my coffee mug?” Joe demanded after spitting out the offending beverage and washing his mouth out in the sink.

“Where’d you leave it?” Stephanie asked, as she went about the morning checks of the tanks in the ‘backstage’ area of the aquarium, “Because if you left it back here –”

“I did,” he scowled, “but I left it up on the shelf so nothing could have splashed into it.”

“You just downed a cup of day old coffee and you’re complaining about the taste?” She snickered, “But if you really want to know, it was probably Otto.”

“Who’s he? Someone on the nightshift?”

Still new to the job Joe didn’t know all of the people who worked the different shifts and he didn’t know the stories.

Well, that was about to change.

“Otto’s not a person, he’s an Abdopus octopus,” Stephanie explained with a mischievous grin, “And he’s the one to blame for most of the trouble that happens back here.”

Joe glanced over in the direction of the octopus’ tank. The deep red cephalopod was intent on opening a mayonnaise jar to get at the crab that they’d put inside as enrichment, “I didn’t even know we had one of them. I thought it was only the giant Pacific octopus and he’s no trouble at all, other than being a little grabby. You’ll have to introduce me to Otto so I can see the culprit first hand.”

A little grabby might have been an understatement and there was a piece of paper taped above the access hatch of the tank to remove your glasses before opening it. The big guy had a thing for eyewear and would pull the glasses right off your face to spend the next hour or so carefully popping the lenses out and then pull the arms off. It was how octopuses were though, smart enough to find all sorts of trouble to cause, so learning that one of them was an escape artist was hardly a surprise.

“Oh, you’ll never see Otto,” Stephanie’s grin grew, “He started escaping from his tank years ago.”

“Years ago?” Joe quirked an eyebrow. Everyone knew that, with a few notable exceptions, octopuses didn’t live for more than two years.

“Years ago,” she nodded, “We first realized something was happening when fish and crabs from other tanks started going missing. There was a lot of finger pointing going on so Jonny offered to bring in his trail camera and leave it back here overnight. That was how we caught the little guy in action. He’d flip the lid off his tank, find another tank with an open top, see if there was anything he could eat there and then squeeze back into his own tank before anyone came in in the morning. We tried securing his tank better, but he always found a way around it, so we tried securing the other tanks better. That helped some, but things would still end up moved, or wet or pulled into his tank if they were especially interesting. He even figured out how to turn the lights on and off.”

“So where is he now?” Joe looked up, as though expecting to see Otto suctioning his way across the ceiling, ready to drop down on him at any moment.

“No one knows,” Stephanie finished the story with a practiced shrug, “One day he left his tank and didn’t come back. For weeks afterwards people were seeing him in the most random places. Jonny swears he saw Otto in the shark tank, of all places and Suzanne insists that she caught him in the act of tipping over the racks she was growing some coral frags on in that little tank she keeps by the filters. Of course, by the time they got someone else over to where they saw him Otto was long gone. We’re just kind of used to it now. I saw him just last week by the tide pool display and later that day I saw a little pile of crab shells in the corner.”

“There’s no way an octopus has been running wild through this place for so long,” Joe rolled his eyes, “Even if he did get out and live on the run he’s bound to be dead of natural causes by now.”

“I know,” Stephanie agreed, “But people still see him. That’s why you can’t leave anything alone here overnight and supposedly he does like to climb into coffee mugs from time to time.”

“Sure,” Joe laughed, “I know that every place has stories like that to give new people a hard time and now it’s my turn.”

Shaking his head, he brought his mug over to the sink to wash it, trying not to notice the way the hoses were coiled along the floor looked like an eight-legged shadow slinking away into the corner.

It was just for a moment and then it was gone.

Laughing at himself for being so gullible Joe finished washing his mug and made a mental note not to leave it out again, just to be safe.


End file.
